Author
Topic: Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM (Read 34054 times)

PXL_Pusher

Now - I know this lens got a bad wrap with online reviews... and I'm not saying sigma has anything remotely acceptable in terms of quality control... but this lens has actually served me really well. Anyone have a positive experience with this lens? Here's one of my shots with the Sigma 50 to get it going...

Shot almost wide open @ 1.6 on my old 50D 1/200 - Natural lighting

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RSBJ

I bought one a year and a half ago. Absolutely love it. It's my only non-L lens and it seems a little out of place when I put it back and it's surrounded by $$$$$ worth of Canon glass. But so what, it's one of my favorite lenses and it's earned a spot on my shelf.

In fact I run a lens-rental business out of my home in Pittsburgh, and it is my most requested lens. I gave one of my clients my 85 /f1.2 II for free, and she promptly returned it saying she'd rather pay for the Sigma! The 85 is a great lens, but the focus is too slow for some people I guess.

Don't worry about it's rep. If it's serving you well, who cares what anyone else thinks.

JasonM

I bought the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 about 3 months ago and love it on my 7D for portraits. It doesn't focus very quickly but I knew that going in and my understanding is that's true of any very large aperture lens because the focusing elements are large and heavy. Great lens and better value than the Canon 50mm f/1.2 and better IQ than the Canon 50mm f/1.4 according to the reviews I read in deciding which to go with.

Also one of the few non-L lenses I own. Beats the Canon 50mm f/1.4 on 7D by my eyes. Lab tests may differ though. Only downside is that focus feels and sounds a little rough but it's not a significant problem.

I think the lens can be decent, but also think it can be a bigger crapshoot with quality and matching the lens to the camera. For me I went with the Canon just because the odds were more in my favor of not having to think about the lens, whether it had more CA, was slightly off, or had build issues.

Now when it comes to a lower price point, then I start looking more seriously at them.

For me, I am just hoping that they improve their quality a little bit and offer stronger competition. Always nice to have this to not only drive the market for improvement, but to keep prices from being inflated... For the record, I have been an AMD guy over Intel for close to a decade... More performance, cheaper price.

Neeneko

I got one maybe a year ago and have had a pretty good experience with it (I was lucky when it came to quality control) but I do have one major complaint with it.

For some reason they built it to use 77mm filters, even though by the looks of it the actual optics do not require it. Not a big deal for people who do all their work in Photoshop, but I tend to use physical filters heavily so it means getting larger and more expensive filters. Actually that isn't too big of a deal since my next most commonly used lens is 72mm so all my filters are about that size anyway, but I imagine it could be a problem for someone who does most of their shooting with smaller lenses.